Kanye West's March To Grammy Glory Leads Through Superbowl

NEW YORK (Roc-A-Fella Records) - Emerging from a rollercoaster ride of a year that saw multi-platinum success, a chorus of critical acclaim, sold-out crowds all over the world, and culminating in a sweeping, historic 10 Grammy nominations, one might just find some time to sit back and rest on their laurels. Just don't tell that to Kanye West, who has just been announced to perform at the 47th annual Grammy Awards on February 13th in Los Angeles.

As his date with Grammy glory approaches – among West's 10 nominations are Album Of The Year, Song of The Year, and Best New Artist – Kanye has thrown himself back into work as producer, video director, label head and artist. Speculation on various highly publicized collaborations aside, Kanye has been devoting a lot of studio time to friend and Getting Out Our Dreams Music signee Common, whose forthcoming album 'Be' is due this spring on Getting Out Our Dreams/Geffen.
This month also saw the first release from Getting Out Our Dreams/Sony – John Legend's brilliant Get Lifted – debut to overwhelming acclaim and sales success; Get Lifted currently No 4 on the Billboard album charts. Kanye also took on the role of video director for Legend's stark, beautiful ballad 'Ordinary People.' John Legend is set to perform at the Getting Out Our Dream Music launch party in New York on February 7th and will join Kanye onstage at the Grammys.

On Thursday, February 3rd Kanye will join Outkast's Big Boi in a Jacksonville, Florida concert kicking off the Pepsi Smash Super Bowl Concert Series. The three-night series, which provides NFL fans with a taste of the Super Bowl entertainment experience, will take place Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 3-5 at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena. Portions of ticket sales will go to tsunami relief. West is no stranger to Super Bowl mayhem: last year, just days prior to the release of Dropout, he brought the house down at the New England Patriots victory party in Houston.

On February 10th - the one-year anniversary of the release of The College Dropout - Kanye will host a reception for the launch of the Kanye West Foundation, which is dedicated to combating the dropout problem in the nation's schools with compelling music programs.
'Loop Dreams, the first initiative of the Kanye West Foundation, is designed to support the fight to keep instruments in the schools, and to provide opportunities for 'at-risk' students to learn how to write and produce music while simultaneously improving their academic skills.' At the reception, Kanye will unveil a painting he commissioned from renowned artist Ernie Barns.

Throughout all this activity, Kanye has been hard at work on his next album, Late Registration, which is due later this year on Roc-A-Fella / Def Jam.